Ever think about what will happen when you take your last breath? I have, and I've been moved to dig for facts and document my findings. I trust my novel will make you think about our very short time on this earth. Please join me on a journey to explore what lies beyond. For more information, please visit my website at www.jeffwaltonbooks.com. For members, please contact me via email.

Final Departure: Death Is Never On Time

Dan Lucas is a man of few words. He spent a career keeping his nation’s secrets safe and his personal life—including his faith—personal. So personal that the retired NCIS special agent will go to great lengths to avoid discussing his beliefs about the Bible with anyone.

But Dan is backed into a corner and forced to defend his faith the night the ice storm hits, the airport locks its doors, and Professor Ben Chernick chooses the seat next to him in the terminal. Trapped in a clammy and often dark Charlotte Douglas Airport, the two face off in a duel of wits and will. The raging storm outside causes more than its share of mayhem and death. Inside, a tense and often caustic battle of the minds between a seasoned spy catcher and a cynical secular Jew grinds on into the wee hours of the night. Is there really a God? Can we believe the Bible? Do heaven and hell exist? Is Christianity the path to eternal bliss or another lie perpetrated by unscrupulous charlatans who profit from the gullible?

Dan Lucas initially resists engaging with the liberal academic, but he later finds his confidence building as he draws on his years of experience and knowledge to lay out the case for the existence of God, the authenticity of the Bible, the divinity of Jesus Christ, and the increasing body of evidence in the physical world to support the existence of a supernatural realm inhabited by a master creator. Ben Chernick counterattacks with the stinging tongue of a skeptical scholar and tears at the factual underpinnings of Dan’s deeply held beliefs. Each bares his soul and confesses to some painful personal failings as they drop their guard and begin to look at each other as fellow wayward mortals with different world views. The all-night marathon ends with a sudden crushing blow.

Final Departure, the creation of Jeff Walton, a retired US Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) special agent, may sound similar to other works in the past; however, it covers new territory. Walton draws on his years of experience in NCIS counterintelligence to inject some novel concepts into Christian apologetics. The author also adds fresh perspectives on the state of American culture, education, and society, as seen through the eyes of a Christian with a biblical world view.

Textured with interwoven stories of rejection, personal failings, love, and redemption, Final Departure takes the reader on a perilous flight into the higher altitudes of life, death, and beyond. The novel is threaded with realism—and true-to-life glimpses into the world of the actual NCIS.

Is faith built on a fairy tale or on a book inspired by God? The reader makes the final call on whether Dan or Ben makes his case. For more information, see www.jeffwaltonbooks.com